Fix Yourself Up Bruv, Step Off The Warpath
by PopShop
Summary: Following each others story lines through late night news reports and daytime documentaries, Hwoarang and Jin often wish they'd met under more fortunate circumstances. It's hard to make polite conversation with the barrel of a gun between your teeth.
1. Storebought Celebrity

**excuse me while i tip-toe around organizational skills!**

* * *

There's a smell in the air, chemicals and illness, lonely corridors of white faces and dark rimmed eyes. It's been a long time since these white walls have witnessed a smile, this young boy is not about to be the first.

He sits, hunched, eyes studying the patchwork floor, attention devoted to counting the notches in the linoleum, a rare moment of silence, his lips twisted into an ugly grimace, brow knotted with the effort of filtering the screams from his breathing, trapping the helpless rage behind his teeth.

His damaged hand rests on his knees, fingers contorted at angles impossible to reconstruct. Jagged bone protruding from the pale skin, blood and dirt his medicine of choice. Weak tremors jolt up his arm, each time breaking his focus, interrupting his thoughts, each time forcing him to rethink his situation, to absorb the hollowed-out white world.

_This is your life._

Each night he dances with death, teases his sanity, but he's aware he can only take one home. Like a child in a candy store, his inner arguments rage, his conscience spitting its brutal opinions. He always caves, offering his arm to his sanity, escorting it home, glancing over his shoulder at a rejected death. A defeated smile across his face.

There's always tomorrow, Hwoarang.

These contorted knuckles, bruised and bleeding skin, these are his badges of pride, his physical attachment to the world. He glances down, reluctantly noting the rapid tremble of his hand; the fingernails caked in blood, knuckles warped and shattered. Self-induced injury, a choice he makes each night.

To bleed out or blend in.

He'd kill to not be ordinary.

He fights, taking his frustration in life to a new level, to a new victim. Dark shadows with leering eyes, watching him closely navigate his way through the night streets. Not even the neon pink spreads a light to his face, hollow eyes absorbing his surroundings like they're his first steps into a strange new world. Another fine act. It's the blood of the streets that pumps through his veins. These winding roads and filthy alleys are his childhood.

Pretence is next to perfection.

They spit their insults, their bitter lies of greatness, crack their knuckles and tense their necks. Drag hazy eyes over his body, evaluating the damages before the first physical connection. He stands, obediently, enjoying this position, the centre of attention, exposed and vulnerable.

Only ... not.

The contact comes, the shattering cracks, the enraged groans. Let the bodies hit the floor. And each night he walks away, a little more dignity stacked on an oversized ego. The things you can never have too much of.

Last night had not gone as well as he had hoped. His private rage at his personal life blinding him with frustration, red seeping slowly into his vision, making him irrational. The echo of his first victim, their heavy body hit the pavement. That was his calling, everything else blurred to white noise. And for a few brief seconds, he was an addict. His fist colliding with bone, the sickening cracks, shards of teeth embedded in his knuckles. Pleading and begging leaking out from beneath his fist, a voice he ignored, mastered by his own habits. An addiction to violence. The world around him faded to silence, the ragged voice screaming at him from below, disappearing, the slight whimpers dissolving into the night time buzz. The other shadows had blended back to the darkness, seeking shelter from a young boy's private rage.

_Dear diary, my teen angst has a body count._

That was the vision that had stumbled back through the nightlife maze. Hands stained in crimson, the liquid glinting and catching the neon lights, reflecting a horrible truth. Feet struggling to maintain a rhythm, stumbling and shuffling. People watch but never interfere, say a brief prayer between their teeth that tonight, someone somewhere has spared them.

It's early morning now, the clock ticking its painful counting for the entire world to overhear, the noise echoing in Hwoarang's ringing ears. He trembles, but it's no advertisement for fear, or weakness, its shock. Skin peeled back like a sweet wrapper, shards of white puncturing the exposed innards. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, settling his mind more than his stomach.

"If you could keep those inner demons under control for once, boy, these things wouldn't be happening," mutters an older man, thick arms folded across his chest, eyelids heavy for want of sleep, flickering and fluttering, but still managing to intimidate Hwoarang. A skill practised over many years spent in each others company.

He's exhausted, his face gaunt, skin tinted with dirty grey shades, a man worn down from picking up the pieces of his student's life, over and over again. A repetitive motion they've become familiar with. They both know deep down, a nagging feeling in the back of their minds that should Hwoarang's after hour adventures ever draw to a close, it will have a devastating impact on their relationship, no longer able to provide that support for each other, the warm and familiar.

Last night they had played through the same old routine, the same desperate, hopeless expressions, inside forcing down a smile. He was awoken to the sound of frantic banging on his door, each thundering knock echoed by the sound of harsh breathing. Each night he rises a little slower, lingers a little longer behind the door to hear his student whimper and struggle. He listens to hear that moment where Hwoarang realises he's nothing more than human, the revelation that happens every night, its impact overwritten by morning. A sadistic pleasure in pushing his student to his mental boundaries, leading him through emotional hoops. But by the time he heaves the door open, Hwoarang is a picture of the apocalypse. Face carved in solid stone.

Last night had been different, a little more of Hwoarang exposed, a genuine hysteria in his voice as he came banging, the knocks mistimed, pausing and starting in bursts. The sight of Hwoarang standing in the shadows of the hallway, face streaked in lines of dirt, streams of blood, his hand cradled against his chest. Exposed bone glinting in the hall light. It brought his master back almost ten years to see such vulnerability in him. Hwoarang as the little boy with the cut knee, the bump on his head, crying for his parents.

Times change, Hwoarang's body count rising each and every day.

In the apartment, the student couldn't control his breathing, his chest heaving and sinking with the effort, eyes shut tight, reluctant to see his hand, to see what's hidden beneath his skin. A denial of seeing how human he is beneath it all. A denial of being normal beneath it all.

His master insists on medical treatment, unwilling to see his student's abilities stunted by a hand not healing right. But behind his fatherly concern, his rambling about medical procedures, he silently thanks his student, appreciates that for one more night, he returned to him, to keep him in strange company.

Only the people who have somebody, hate being lonely.

"Excuse me sir? Can I ask you to sign this? It's consent, Just so the doctors can take a look," a nurse suddenly thrusting a clipboard in front of the master, the crinkled sheets of illegible lettering almost touching his nose. His exhausted eyes drag lazily across the pages, looking but not seeing, the words a series of blurred lines. Hazy eyes dart to Hwoarang's hunched figure, initially a hint of teasing held in their depths, but seeing his student like this, dark eyes fill with nothing but regret and pity.

Hwoarang remains oblivious to the sympathetic stares, and maybe it's for the better, he still holds onto the idea that he might just be something better, sympathy from a human nothing but a nuisance. The young woman rattles the pages, a verbally lacking attempt to re-attract the old man's attentions, aware of the concerned glances he throws the younger man. He signs wearily, the scratching sound of the pen nib across the paper endlessly irritating the younger one, his undamaged fist curled tightly in a ball, fingernails carving half-moon shapes in his palms. His face knotted and focused, skin streaked with various stains, she ventures to think that maybe aside from the agony, this boy could manage 'pretty', although she reminds herself silently how unattractive a man with a god complex can be.

Collecting her clipboard and pen, the young nurse trots off, followed by a handful of desperate eyes, the mothers with their sick children cradled in their arms, their lips constantly moving in silent prayer. The man and his wife, his head bruised and bleeding, rivers of blood rushing down the plains of his cheeks, her endless cooing in his ear, her attempts at convincing him it'll be alright.

How eagerly everyone in this hospital room watches her, each screaming their own call for help, and yet the one man her concerns lie with, maintains a calm, collected persona, gazing indifferently at the floor tiles.

There's a tension in the room that sends prickly heat up her back, the kind of heavy, dopey stares that come from people desperate to do something but severely lacking the capacity.

As a last resort, she slaps a hand lazily on the remote control hidden beneath a stack of papers at the reception desk, all eyes instantly shifting to the small screen flickering to life from its corner.

"... unfortunate, it is a shame to admit the companies sales have rocketed over the past few months, because ..."

People shift uncomfortably to better see the screen, a shy shuffling so as not to disturb the other patients. The first stretches of sunlight spill across the room, an angry white glare on the television screen. Hwoarang doesn't glance up, eyes still rooted to the tiles that have probably witnessed a lot more misfortunes than he has in his short lifetime. The sound from his lips is almost inaudible, low and choked, voice harsh from his frantic breathing, scratched from abuse he doesn't care to admit to. His master glances over, hints of an amused smile creeping across his face at the question his student mutters.

"What's that old bastard rattling on about now?"

Heihachi Mishima, head of Mishima Zaibatsu, a company continuously gaining power, the man easily striding his way to the top of the food chain, fighting for his promotion to god. With the threat of war looming, the Zaibatsu, as a major arms producing company, once more found themselves on the rise to power, using metaphorical elbows and attitude to knock competitors out of the running. Mishima himself, under the pretence of a bumbling old man, managed to win over the public affection, smiling and joking his way through times of crisis, through the unidentified bodies and vanishing lawsuits against the company.

The man held more influence in his position than a president ever could, and such a rise to fame frustrated Hwoarang to no end.

His master smiles fondly, a warm gesture once more lost on a cold exterior. The grudge his student bares against the Mishima devil runs a lot deeper than a teenager's jealousy. Hwoarang craves the power and the influence.

He cannot live forever, but he wants to create something that will.

Although he'd never verbalize his thoughts, his master knows how he thinks, understands the complicated downward spirals his imagination works in. He watches him now, his battered and broken student, hazel eyes staring down the floor tiles as though the answer to life was scrawled across them. Copper coloured strands throw harsh shadows across his expressionless face, an almost audible crack of bones as his body tenses, visibly seething as the Mishima heads' words captivate the entire population of the room.

Hwoarang sees this threat of war as a personal attack, an obstacle to prevent him reaching any potential, all his rage misdirected at the mishima, encouraging the fighting with his obsessive selling and trading of weaponry. There are reasons the frustrated young teenager no longer lives with his parents, why he lives in a hostel, spends to majority of his time familiarising himself with violence. He knows it's only a matter of time, an inevitable fact; the authorities will come searching for him. His master has already warned him, the words sinking hard and fast, setting a terrifying ache in his head. Like every other young man his age, the military remains his future home, this threat of war setting a chain of inevitable events.

An ultimate fear of his.

To be drafted into the military, to wear the uniform, the follow the orders, to be normal.

That is his biggest threat.

He doesn't fight to cause trouble, he fights to relieve stress, he fights for the injuries, collecting them like stamps or action figures, hiding them away until they are of use to him.

Understandably, the notion of war sets Hwoarang on edge, his lips pressed in a grim line, bloodshot eyes squeezed shut tight, fighting the urge to glance at the screen, to see his enemy's decaying old face portrayed in such heavenly light. This man is responsible for many deaths, and he invites war, an opportunity to waste more human life. Hwoarang is on his list, but the red-head has absolutely no interest in playing pawn in Heihachi Mishima's sick little game of life.

The screen quickly flashes to another scene, a young man escorted by a herd of tough men, tight haircuts and veins as thick as vines roped around their necks. A crowd of people surge towards him, ebb and flow with the movement of his lapdogs, a tide of fanatic girls. Despite the dark glasses, dull black strands hanging in his eyes, shielding his expression from the cameras, there's no doubt who the withering character is.

"In related news .. ," the voice of the reporter interrupts, her sing-song words the background to the scene of celebrity downfall onscreen, "grandson to Heihachi Mishima, Jin, has recently publicly rejected his grandfathers pleas that he attend a clinic for a series of emotional breakdowns that have stretched over the duration of 5 to 6 weeks now. When probed further about his grandson's mental health, Mr. Mishima became a little less confident, insisting he had no comment about the current situation. For the time being he is unwilling to expose any information about his grandsons health although sources say that-"

The gossip suddenly blocked out by the roaring sound of white noise before the hissing screen blanks out, Hwoarang's functional palm splayed across the power button, his irritation written clearly across his face. The nurse glances up from her papers, reluctant to make eye contact with the irritable young man, bandages hanging limp, bloody and tattered from his injured hand, serving as a reminder of the limits of this boys temper.

She quickly returns to her frantic scribbling, shuffling papers and coughing gently in the back of her throat. Anything to block out the sounds as the arguments fire up, angry patients raising their voices in protest against the red-heads silent rage. His companion, she notes, does nothing but sit and watch, like this young mans sudden mental relapse is the most fascinating thing in the world.

Like this scene, the tattered young street ruffian, his scarves of bandages and blood, his fist hammered against the control panel of the television, that grim shattered expression on his face, like this is worth capturing on film.

Glancing over the rim of her glasses, she notices those pleading eyes, a collection of desperation, glancing back at her, each and every patient once more silently asking for her help, their distraction destroyed by the hazel-eyed young man.

"Irritable, aren't we?" hums his master, arms once more folded across a heavy chest, eyes closed lightly, mind lost in wandering. He quickly disguises his surprise, how Hwoarang remained glued to the floor tiles, physically and mentally, eyes absorbed in counting the scratches, despite Heihachi Mishima's smug comments onscreen regarding his regret over the coming war.

He recalls this situation, the lines and the actions, from a previous scene, another outburst, in private, Hwoarang visibly shaken by whatever he had convinced himself he was seeing. Another video conference, although his master highly debated any of Mishima's words had disturbed him so deeply. Days later, Hwoarang would hesitantly admit a certain jealousy, something not uncharacteristic to his nature, but towards someone he had never even met, a one Jin Mishima, the teenage grandson of a man encouraging war, and yet this grandson did not have to fight. A fact Hwoarang obediently and silently bore his grudge for.

_I'll fight, but by my own rules._

"What has he got to be stressed about? What could he possibly blame for all these 'emotional breakdowns'?" Hwoarang spits, eyes once more fixed on the linoleum, disregarding the angered stares and concerned glances he's receiving from the other patients. His master snorts through his nose, eyes flickering open to regard his student, the defeated stance and the lost eyes.

A boy planning to take on the world.

He doesn't answer, simply settles back to his previous comforts, memories of when Hwoarang could remember how to smile.

"He's not going to war; he's got all that cash. Sure, he's gotta live with gramps, but it's a small price to pay. One I'm sure he can afford".

The red-heads mutterings and garbled ramblings continue under his breath, his master struggling to collect the angry words, to piece them together and pretend there's more to his student than misdirected jealousy.

"It's all attention. Pretty boy gets some media attention for bein' 'mentally fragile' and suddenly everyone knows the old man".

The master gently shakes his head, in awe of such strong hatred bleeding out of every pore; Hwoarang's face a carefully placed mask of indifference, but hazel eyes shifting in colour, the rage readable through them.

Hwoarang knows the facts, he's aware of the mishima history, a mental gift from his master, something to relieve his anguish regarding the whole situation. Heihachi Mishima's rise to power was all in fair game. A self-made man, single, and devoted to his career. A nugget of information to convince turmoiled Hwoarang that Mishima was already a household name before Jin Mishima came onto the scene. Granted, the family name did suffer under a lot of negative press a few years back after Heihachi Mishima's own son was reported missing. without any information, or a body, the case was declared to have gone to cold, although the declaration came a little too soon for the media who instantly began their questioning, prying and prodding, wondering if perhaps Heihachi had something to do with the disappearance. Kazuya mishima left his son, Jin, in the care of his grandfather before his suspicious absence from the family, allowingJin to be raised through the negative press coverage and the smothering daily routine of a teenage celebrity.

Despite his knowledge, Hwoarang remains ignorant, satisfied to blame his own downfall on the troubled heir to the Mishima fortune.

"Excuse me sir? We're going to have to move up your appointment, you're upsetting some of the other patients," the whimpering nurse from earlier shuffles over, voicing everyone's thoughts reluctantly, her voice timid and shaking, and her hands held out in surrender. Hwoarang doesn't react as though he's heard her, glowing eyes still studying his master, searching him for some form of encouragement, words of confidence to set his mind at ease.

The older man remains silent, head hung back, muscles relaxed, a rarity. Hwoarang shakes his head, a bitter smile breaking out across his lips. The simple gesture changes his entire face, proof of his youth now clearly on display. The nurse visibly relaxes, relieved to see a young boy with such a violent temper attempt to offer a smile.

"I'm just sayin', he should appreciate what he's got. There're people worse off," he mutters, rolling his eyes before obediently following the rigid nurse from the room.

"Careful Hwoarang. Who are we to know what goes on behind closed doors?" comes the sleepy response.

_And who knows how many skeletons can fit in a Mishima's closet?_

* * *

**Ya-hah! Once more from the top. Man i must be a pain in the ass! I'm totally blaming this on raaaaaaaaaaazah! She TOTALLY peer-pressured me into tekken! lol. She's my inspiration for this one. Well, Her and tekkenpedia?! I'm only writing now 'cause i'm super freakin' happy!**

**Oh yeah don't own blah blah blah, yaddah yaddah. The usual, thanks.**


	2. Not Your Enemy

_**"tormented by loneliness and fear pushes kids to take drugs"**_

* * *

**"**Master Mishima, the president will see you now," the lazy drawl of a woman vaguely interested in her job. The voice of a woman who sees everyday as a decision. To live, or not to live. This is her ideal line of work, bodyguard to the boy with the desire for taunting the negative.

The boy who plays with disaster.

"Master Kazama," comes the immediate correction, a practised response, a familiar conversation they share. She snorts in amusement, a sound audible through the locked door.

She holds no consideration for her subject, only revels in the disasters he brings her, the catastrophes he throws at her feet.

"Please sir, enough of the formalities," her lazy syllables fading to silence as she turns and abandons him to his teenage brooding, leaving no room for argument. Her footsteps fading into the miserable silence of the Mishima maze, a wall to wall mansion of madness, mystery, money and well-to-do men harbouring secret agendas.

His voice thick with exhaustion, his limbs aching with fatigue. The involuntary life he leads, the cameras and the fake smiles, silicone girls and his handful of rainbow coloured pills.

He might say 'this is the life' if he could venture to call it that.

A stack of magazines litter his workspace, pages torn and blurred. His life in someone else's words, his life through someone else's eyes, through the camera lens. Through these pages he sees the parties, the accidents, the loose women, and yet, recalling these images from the mess of his own mind has become a difficult task in itself. The convenient comfort of white noise behind his eyes.

He can't see his way without the flash of a camera to illuminate it.

Can't describe himself without the cheap words of some reporter craving their big break. He is no longer his own person, he's theirs. The once plain and pure pin-up boy that the masses corrupted as they saw fit. When he was young, still measuring his life in single digits, just the innocent heir to a monstrous empire, but as his teens rolled in, the tabloid gossip grew more and more focused, tall tales of a boy at war with his own family, at war with his own inner demons, the drugs and the dolls. How ironic he grew to fit they mould they'd created him. Bought his chemicals from the very people who condemned his imaginary drug habits.

He was played, and now all he can do is follow the rules, the kind of game you don't walk away from.

On his desk lies the contrast to his present lifestyle, a crumpled page from his past, littered with coffee-cup rings and smudged tear stains, the only words his mother left him before her death. The neat, curled letters of, '_don't let them taint you, you'll always be a Kazama_'.

How quickly those words lost their value.

While he pictured her words of encouragement in his vision, permanently carved before his eyes, the white lights and red carpet fame quickly dissolved them. His addictions weren't pill-sized, pockets of white powders, his addictions were the limelight and late nights of idol worship.

There's no pride left to attach to the Kazama name, his mother's name. Maybe if one person addressed him as such, he'd find the strength to smile and pretend for just one more day, that he's done his mother's memory proud.

He tucks the letter carefully away, storing it beneath the stacks of his modern day diary, not one entry written from his own hand, these magazine reports serve as his memory now. Outside his window the sun is just streaking its red fingers across the sky, biding its reluctant goodbye for the night, the after-dark hum already set in motion, the seedy bars and desperate girls already calling his name.

The nightlife is his hiding place.

He smiles at the thought of, for just one more night, abandoning this mansion of Mishima madness behind him. Shakes his head to dislodge the thoughts of returning in the morning.

* * *

The corridors are empty, not even the faint cling of dishes from the kitchens reach his ears, the cool breeze whistling through the abandoned hallways, his footsteps the only accompaniment to his wandering mind. The darkness of the outside world seems to follow him, the black of the sky spreading and reaching with each step he takes. He keeps his eyes down and continues on, not dwelling on the reactions of the dying daylight.

His bodyguard seems to have vanished into the woodwork of the walls, not even the piercing sound of her voice remaining. Not the echo of her footsteps.

A house that swallows its occupants whole.

Through the dimly lit corridors and stark marble staircases, he encounters no one, just the lingering faces stored in his mind. He loses count of the locked doors lining his route, the paintings decorating the walls. His pointless journey through his own home, his only reward, a disastrous encounter with his grandfather.

The seconds count down to their battle of words, but he ignores the ticking.

"Jin? Your grandfather is busy at the moment; he requested you wait out here until he's available."

This is the voice of a woman defeated, her loss of passion in her daily life evident through her tired eyes. She watches the Mishima heir stride his way towards her, the blackened corridors framing the frustration in his eyes. She doesn't smile, doesn't offer him much acknowledgement, refuses to associate with his type of creature.

A man riddled with addiction, she should know, at one time in her career, she was his addiction.

The lonely, late-night secretary he'd crawl to, his pixie dust still smeared across his nostrils, the blood leaving trails across his skin, hot hands and hotter lips, just searching for a way to send his grandfather into his characteristic rage. Jin only stopped his late-night visits upon realising that her body belonged to the Mishima name, her contract transformed her into an object, something owned, catalogued under Heihachi Mishima's title.

He quickly lost interest, vaguely aware that his grandfather had probably left his own fingerprints along this woman's skin. Suddenly his desire for his drugs grew, swallowed his mind whole. Their relationship reduced to brief nods and angry glares.

Times haven't changed much.

Jin grunts, eyes skimming briefly to the hard plastic chair placed by the door to his grandfather's office. Toned arms folded high on his chest, decorated with tattoos and scars, his silent rebellion. His lips pressed in a grim line, an expression too old on his teenage face. Bare feet leaving hot footprints leading back to his own lair among the darkness.

The picture of informalities.

"He called to see me. I didn't keep him waiting; he cannot afford the luxury of keeping me waiting".

The secretary rolls bloodshot eyes, quickly busying her trembling hands with stacks of paperwork, the letters blurring in her panic to avoid confrontation with the irritable heir. She hears his heavy breathing, feels his dark eyes burning holes in her skin.

"Sir, please take a seat".

* * *

The bustled shuffling of papers, the choked coughs of frustration, the signs of the decaying grandfather, nestled among his chaos behind the doors to his office. The sounds of his empire don't bleed into his ears, protected behind his stacks of paperwork. He couldn't face reality; a minor dose would bring him to his knees. But he continues to hold firm his power, his control of the Mishima Zaibatsu, a cure for his obsession with control. But this disease continues to eat from the inside, the nagging aspects of his day to day routine that he cannot hold firm under his force. His grandson, the shaded character of Jin Mishima.

The fire he cannot wait to extinguish.

Voices spill under the door, arguing, the flustered pleadings of his secretary, a woman who had thus far proved herself to be nothing but a pretty face, a blank personality painted pretty with cheap red lipstick and thick black lashes. Her dainty hands not enough to hep her maintain her stressful position. Working for the head Mishima does not fall under the title of 'employment', rather something to entertain the days of a compulsive risk taker.

His grandson's monotonous drone reaches his ears, scrapes at his already aching mind, but Heihachi's heavy fists hammering the intercom button, anything to prevent the inevitable argument manifesting itself outside his door.

"Well aren't we the perfect picture of pugnaciousness this evening".

The instinctive words of a boy constantly perched on defence. His pretty verbal assault, the same tone each and every moment they spend together. His smile may boast a teenager's indifference, but his ribs ache with the effort of trapping his words, each condemning breath he throws at his grandfather.

Heihachi Mishima, a man content to lead an empire into war, yet still struggling to lead his only grandson through the doors of a rehab clinic.

Jin mishima has a problem, another celebrity tainted by an underground lifestyle, another case of the young falling and failing due to stupidity.

They both acknowledge the facts, but they tip-toe around agreement, craving the dramatics. They need these familiar arguments, the grandfather's hushed requests and the grandson's rushed defence.

Without these daily interactions, the bonds between them are non-existent.

Heihachi doesn't make a move to respond to his stubborn grandson, Jin's jaw set in steel, teeth revealed more as a warning than a smile. He reluctantly acknowledges the latest gossip magazines, shredded across the table, the words in pieces and the pictures torn to scraps. A pleasant alternative for his grandfather's rage. While he cannot use claws and teeth to discipline his grandson, he takes his frustrations out on the 2D imitations taunting him from the pages.

Heihachi's thin lips don't form words, a grim sneer set upon them, weak, trembling eyes already running through the next order of business, public demands and planning permission. Strong hands, worn to bone over time, clench tight the glossy pages of a tabloid, flecks of black and red. Jin carefully watches the veins and tendons in his grandfather's hand, how they knot and pump, pull and swell. While he cannot project his annoyance through his words, he redirects it to his fists.

Words are an un-necessary accessory to this encounter.

Jin quickly recognises the tabloid sheets spread across the desk, the same pictures he had only recently skimmed over, the magazines littering the floor of his bedroom. More pictures of his late-night wanderings, his latest girlfriend, boasting her own personal paparazzi, high-profile, the kind of stories the public love to read, the kind of reports that keep his name on everyone's lips.

Christie Monteiro, the latest name on a stretching list of bedroom adventures. An aspiring supermodel, well on her way to magazine covers and billboard advertisements. A pretty smile, pearly teeth and collagen pumped lips. Hazel hair and dark eyes. Entirely composed of curves and soft lines, a sway to her hips powerful enough to entrance any man, a trap that effectively lured the Mishima heir into her grasp. A strong-willed woman crawling from her own tattered background, an alluring attitude created as a result.

Their relationship may not be entirely happy, but it's functional, occasionally she draws a smile to his lips, more than often she creases his brow with rage, but it's her ability to provoke emotional response from him that captivates him, encourages him to return to her arms, to indulge himself in her friendly nature and obscure pillow talk.

Christie, despite her wealth and increasing popularity, is not the woman Heihachi Mishima takes pride in knowing his son is with. For him, the relationship between Christie and his grandson offers him no benefits, ties with the Monteiro family do not support his efforts, his interests lie elsewhere.

Heavy hands, a mess of blue veins beneath weathered skin, hold tight the stacks of magazines, the front pages, the gossip column kings and queens, the thin pages crumple and crack beneath his strong grip.

Jin's face morphs, resentment, guilt, anger, a flare of emotions flickering behind his eyes, his mouth remaining a grim line, the tight press of lips that keeps his inner rage a valuable secret, something he'll offload on some fascinated reporter in the coming weeks. He recognises the pages, the blur of colours and writing as his grandfather flicks the pages, for not long ago, his own tired eyes read the same words, absorbed the same pictures, the gossip, the rumours. He watches his own downfall through the photographs. These are the same magazines littering his bedroom floor; this is his grandfather rubbing salt in the wound.

"It is highly recommended you keep these escapades of yours a more private matter, boy, the Mishima name will not tolerate any more damage dealt by your hand," a strong statement of closure, his grandfather's exclamation mark to finalise a repetitive argument.

Hazy blue eyes flare and spark with years of slowly developing rage, the threat of homicide weighing down, pressing harder on his conscience each and every time he provokes these violent responses from his grandfather. He'd never admit his gamble with his grandfather's health, how every time the old man's blood pressure rises a few notches, the veins in his neck bulging and pulsing, eyes wide and bloodshot, the raven haired grandson squeezes his eyes shut tight, spits his prayers through grit teeth, begging for the old Mishima's inevitable heart attack.

He'd never admit how each time his grandfather steals the title of victor from their familiar arguments, he reminds himself that a vital ingredient in his well-dreamt plot, his grandfather's fatal heart attack, is the heart itself.

It becomes more and more difficult to fall under the category of human these days, even now, the old man hunched over his desk, married to the Zaibatsu's financial issues, the kind of relationship that never sees it's happier days, something exhausting, poisoning, self destructive. These big industry types with their unending desire for technology, development, it becomes them.

These people are no longer people, these people are machines.

No conscience, no obvious weakness, the characteristics he desperately clings to, the aspects of humanity that highlight his self-destructive streak, his media magnet. A life littered with so much loss builds a stronger character. His fall from grace viewed through the camera lens will not be so much a 'fall' as a 'leap'.

"Gossip columns, Jin. I thought I'd raised you a little better than that. All these famous friends of yours, and yet I've not met a single one. Are these people just accessories to you?"

Weary eyes skim the smudged font, each word a promise of later pain. His verbal downfall. Heihachi's finger traces the pictures, his knuckles old and knotted, the bark of a withered old tree, his expression passive, a carefully practised picture of indifference. The storm raging in his eyes is not overlooked by his edgy grandson.

The picture, undeniably Jin Mishima, the well built heir to the Mishima Empire, the boy with promise in his name, but disaster in his pockets.

His arm slung around the waist of his latest sheet spread, Christie's lips attached to his throat, one arm slung around her waist, while his other hand clutches a glass, his holy water, his clear-coloured poisons. His eyes glazed, unfocused, bloodstains across his jaw, Christie's teeth, sparking rumours of abuse, cocaine.

They can't be right all the time.

"How is it Jin, I discover your escapades through someone else's words and blurry photographs. I have yet to hear a confession from your mouth," his grandfather's voice, chillingly indifferent.

"Christie is my girlfriend, a somewhat permanent fixture. I'm beginning to think, grandfather, that you have a problem with Christie being linked with the Mishima name," Jin spits the word 'grandfather' from his lips like it hurts, his rage behind his eyes, building behind his teeth. He can taste the blood.

"I have no problem with Miss. Monteiro, it's you, Jin, that my issue lies with. I'm embarrassed to see you attached to the Mishima title," he utters his words as though the thought is just something he has skimmed over, a fleeting thought, light words incapable of damage. Jin's reaction would suggest otherwise, emotion flaring behind dark eyes, blood-shot and purple-rimmed, a frustration he'll offload on the next fascinated reporter in line.

They race for their fantastic stories, and each day Jin finds himself capable of offering deeper and darker feelings, a more cynical outlook on life. These reporters trip over themselves to catch these stories before anyone else has the chance. These are the stories the public love, the gossip, the relationships, he watches his own downfall in a photographic timeline.

"How do you think my public view me, Jin, a man in control of the arms trade in the face of war, and yet my own grandson is something I cannot maintain a grasp off," his voice rises, his eyes ripped from the pages to stare into the blackened depths of his grandson's eyes, trying to read the stories from them, but not seeing anything more than the words he's already read.

"I've had your bodyguard report back to me on your nightlife activities. She's not had much positive information to offer Jin. Falling in with the kind of people who do nothing but protest against the zaibatsu," snarls Heihachi, thick fingers once more flicking through the glossy pages, pin-pointing something to reference, more words to tear Jin Mishima to his knees. Polished fingernails tap the photo; pinch the page to offer it up to his grandson.

"This young woman, I recognise her from the forces reports. Julia Chang. You're already aware of her reputation, Jin; I can't see a reason for you to associate yourself with her type, and in turn associating the mishima name."

A dangerous smile creeps its way across the young boy's face, dark features hinting at his sinister inner thoughts. He bones unlock, muscles relax, the breath finally escaping from his lungs, a negative tension he had been clinging to.

"But I'm not a mishima, old man. I'm-"

"Your mother's son," interrupts an agitated Heihachi, boulder like fists mashing together the remains of the glossy pages littered across his desk, "Arrogant and irritating. Dishonest but a little easy to please. Am I right, Jin Kazama?"

Suddenly his previous tension rushes through his body, everything rigid, unmovable, his expression grim, outraged, dark eyes flicker in the dimly-lit room.

Jun Kazama had been a woman warped by rumours, the youthful, pure, lone child of an average family. Her interests in science and technology had found her closely linked with the Zaibatsu in her teens to her early twenties. It was through her employment in the company she had first encountered the stoic son of Heihachi Mishima, Kazuya, a hard, silent individual, characteristics Jin had inherited, although gradually overcame with the help of his powders and his potions. Jin himself had been more of an unfortunate mistake in their relationship, the barrier that distanced Kazuya from Jun. The kind of mistake that continues to resurface, something difficult to overcome and avoid.

The thoughts blur and bleed, Heihachi's dark mumblings, falling on deaf ears. His trail of thought leading nowhere.

"I have a headache," he mutters, coarse fingertips buried deep in his temples, already turning, hand resting on the door handle, his grandfather stunned into momentary silence.

Memories of his mother burning the maze of his mind, setting his skin ablaze, his vision spinning. A momentary loss of control, his thoughts on display across his face. His momentary weakness.

He'll retire to his room, curl up beside his toilet and snort his lines of dangerous glitter from the floor tiles. He'll stumble to bed, use clumsy fists to hammer at the buttons, switching the television on, and settle down to watch someone who has it worse of than him.

Tonight he'll find himself absorbed in the story of a fight that broke out, another protest against the Zaibatsu, not something that particularly captivates his attentions. Instead, he smiles to hear the story of a teenage boy, 5'11'' with a reputation of hustling street fights, and now, according to this reporter, a nasty hand injury.

No one ever thinks they'll meet their heroes from the television screen.

* * *

**JHGKUHDXGXIKHFDG;LNFGMJVNXLKCFMV THIS was HORRIBLE to write. Incase it's not obvious ... yet ... i RE-HEALLY do not like Jin Kazama. So it's just hard to write him, and NOT kill him! kjxhgkjdchbkv RAGE!**


	3. Starbucks Says

**Just proof i ain't dead. But i'm getting there. Anyway, Quick look into the life of Jin Kazama from a third party.**

* * *

She scans the magazine pages with a morbid fascination, running through the latest stories associated with her current idol. Bubblegum pink fingernails scratch down through the articles, quickly locating whatever information it is she searches so hard for. Her brows are knotted in concentration, hazel eyes narrowed with focus, almost a shame she doesn't study her textbooks so thoroughly.

By her side, her friend shuffles from one foot to the other, a repetitive action in beat with the music played out over the stores intercom system, but her frustrated sighs are not enough to deter her focused friend.

The store clerk watches them wearily, perched comfortably behind his register, coffee cup battlements protecting him from whatever harm two high-school girls can offer. He'll keep his mouth shut and his eyes tilted towards his log books and dirty fingernails. He's seen her face before, a young girl not unfamiliar to television screens and magazines. And while she may not boast the title of Mishima, she holds her ties close to her heart. The bonds are there, and that idea in itself is enough to terrify him into silence. A humble man, not one to offer insult to one so strongly attached to the Mishima household.

The dark haired girl snorts and sighs, frustrated, flicking through pages at a pace impossibly quick. Hazel-coloured eyes scanning the words for something familiar. Hard-soled shoes tapping a rhythm to convey her impatience. She's long since surrendered the dream of seeing her name printed among these glossy celebrity smiles. She is no starlet, nothing spectacular on her own, no idol, no hero, just a face appearing occasionally through guilty association. Her ties to the Mishima clan. There's only so far she can push herself before her passions become her burdens.

Her brows drawn, small crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes in her efforts to quench the tears of some misunderstood but frequent emotion. The same sensation of suffering homesickness in her own bedroom, like the life she leads isn't her own, but something borrowed with which she can waste her time.

They say we reach our prime in our early teens, and all she can picture is the 13 year old version of herself sat like royalty among her family and friends, her party hats worn like devil horns, hair pulled into pigtails, a smile on her face that would suggest a bright future for its bearer.

Back when falsities were far-reaching and a blur of bright colours could bring a smile to her face.

And the more she dwells on it, the more she realises the highlight of her life will be that image, her birthday cake spread across her cheeks like war paint. She's already missed out on her life, seamlessly passed her sell-by date.

It's why she clings to these pages and lives through another's.

Jin Kazama-Mishima, the latest celebrity flavour, something every budding journalist yearns to sink their teeth into. A boy with more secrets than smiles, his own defence mechanisms slipping and sliding across his features with a practised ease, intimidation techniques at best.

Each picture she glances at, his eyes shadowed by dark glasses, his lips pressed firm, pulled into an ugly grimace. These photographs, a paparazzi's gold, slip easily into a timeline, each one a measurement on the trail of destruction that is Jin Kazama's life. And she should smile, laugh, shake her head and turn the page, silently cursing the red carpet crawlers of modern times. And on any normal day, these perfected actions would be customary, but times do change.

Jin has long since wilted.

This gaunt, exhausted individual is not who she grew up with.

Eyes framed by shades of misery too dismal to dwell upon, skin pulled tight, dark hollows where his health once flushed across his cheeks.

A corpse, a skeleton, another frightful, broken human being faking their title of 'idol'.

She recalls a wide-eyed boy, and while a smile was a foreign expression to his face, there was a light in his eyes that was worth far more. She had always teased him, claiming his arms were too skinny to support such 'claws', laughing out how his hair grew a disorganised mess. He had been weedy, shy, awkward, but most of all, he had been hers.

Dysfunctional at best.

But now, her memories washed clean away by news stories, each one boasting their own evidence of Kazama's less than satisfactory personal life. Today's spread featuring him and his new toy, the Monteiro girl.

He's all sharp edges and rough angles, dark shadows and stark contrast, she's pretty, warm, welcoming. She flows with elegance he severely lacks, his movements wooden and awkward, like a man reduced to his knees before these flocking flash bulbs. She clings to his arm, not a sign of affection, no appreciation in her touch, instead, simply a gesture to remind her of his presence.

Those camera flashes pump the blood through her heart.

Not passion, but popularity.

Wild hazel hair swept back in feathers and beads, eyes rimmed thick with kohl, she's exotic and fresh, while he sinks a little more into the darkness of her shadow. The headline printed neatly beneath the photo reads lies about wedding proposals and pregnancies, while it only takes a simple glance at body language to figure Christie Monteiro is not 'the one' rather than an act of rebellion against the tight-fisted father figure of the Mishima empire.

Columns line the page with professional opinions and blurry words, people's thoughts and concerns regarding the union, each writer happily playing marriage therapist to a couple who have yet to come clean about the relationship they share.

Beneath the anonymous opinions and offered words of support, an advertisement features stardom's answer to Juliet, Christie, boasting pearly white teeth and wide-eyes, rosy cheeks and caramel coloured skin.

The comparison, the more homicidal than suicidal Romeo, a picture of Jin, his head tilted towards the tarmac, fingers massaging his temples, a picture taken from the beginning of his photographic timeline, a turning point in his life, a steep-downward spiral. A momentary lapse of strength for the Mishima heir, and here it is, captured permanently for the world to see.

Another scar on his reputation.

Another scar on his ego.

And the saddest thing is that this girl, her inner child constantly berating her for past mistakes, believed that saying those three little words to the young Kazama boy all those years ago would have made all the difference.

Some things aren't meant to last.

Fires only burn bright for so long.

"Xiaoyu, everyday we read these magazines, how much trouble can these celebrities cause over night?" hums her friends, the lighter haired girl tracing her fingertips in heart shaped patterns over the covers of the various magazines littering the shelves

Xiaoyu simply shakes her head, a slight shrug, gesturing angrily at the curled lettering printed across the pages, finger jabbing with enough force to crinkle

"These articles are destroying that boy," she mutters, her clammy hands scrunching tight the thin pages, fine creases spreading across ill-gotten photographs and words having long since lost their meaning.

She rarely sees the Mishima heir nowadays, his preferences to remain hidden in his room, the door bolted, the television blaring reports of people that karma herself frowns down upon. He does not watch these tragic tales of natural disasters and horrific relationships to provoke any sympathy left in his aching bones, they do not inspire his charity.

Just reassure him that his own life still has a low-point not yet reached.

There may always be someone better, but there is always someone worse.

Miharu looms over her shoulder, the shorter girls' sherbet breath tickling the skin behind her ear. Lips move in silent focus as she skims the articles, feigning an interest for her friends' sake.

"Mum says there was some big report about the Mishima on the news the other night," hums Miharu, flicking amber shaded locks from her eyes, a lollipop stick clenched tightly between sugar-stained teeth. Xiao nods slowly, as though the words that reach her ears are spoken in tongues, like she cannot fully comprehend her closest friend's efforts at acting captivated.

"She says Jin Kazama is one confused and self-destructive young man," adds the shorter girl, carefully eyeing her friend for a response, any kind of snap reaction to prove her over-active imagination hasn't once again carried her to the gold-dusted world printed on the pages of these cheap gossip magazines.

"He's not confused, or self-destructive, Mi," and the words bleed from her lips without much conviction, her heart and her mind already aware of her childhood friends dwindling stability. Over her shoulder, Miharu rolls hazel coloured eyes, her interest captured by a pretty face strolling by the shop window.

And Xiao continues, without much control over thought or emotion, like defending a piece of herself, something deep and personal. Her voice low, muttered, barely audible to her own ears, although she has long since stopped listening, conscious of lingering feelings for the Mishima heir. And those repetitive words, her own private mantra, convince her that despite the utter hopelessness of any situation, any corner he finds himself trapped in, Jin Kazama will always return to her for his reassurance, his words of wisdom, his encouragement.

She tells herself these printed words are fictional, an imaginative story about some other Jin Kazama, some stranger content to watch his life pass him by. An unfamiliar face content to live within a constrictive shadow, to hand his heart to whoever his grandfather should command. And the more she reads, the more she comes to realise, there is only one Jin Kazama.

She has to reach her decision.

Which one she chooses to accept.

The card-board cut-out of a boy from her childhood, boasting a stony personality and a severe lack of expression.

Or this new, almost superhuman character, collecting personal issues like baseball cards and displaying them without fail to the media.

"I can't understand why people believe this rubbish," she explodes suddenly, eager to break free from her dark reverie, her sudden enthusiasm startling her autumn-haired partner in crime. Miharu herself seems dreamy, as though her own mind had wandered, gazing at her friend as though this being the first time to lay eyes on her. And while her mouth moves wordlessly momentarily, the words, "But you believe it, don't you?" finally press from between her glossy lips.

Xiao manages to recover from her momentary state of stunned, feeling almost as though her world had been pulled from beneath her feet. And while they may not have been necessarily close, Jin had been an important part of her childhood, and while she seemed to travel constantly as a young girl, constantly adapting to new faces and strange places, Jin had acted as a pillar. While her world may have stood on its head, all she knew falling about her ankles, she could always guarantee the bored, indifferent expression the Kazama would wear.

"Jin Mishima, " Miharu reads from the cover of a magazine, her words holding no intention of purposely hurting her dear friend, but a sharp edge contained within nonetheless. "Says hear he's been spotted doing drugs in dark clubs," and she absorbs the looks of disbelief from her friends face with an uncomfortable reluctance before slowly adding, "but the photograph is really blurry".

"And who's to say any of this Christie business is fact?" she hums, sliding effortlessly into a carefree persona worn at the best of times, popular for it's ability to instantly diffuse awkward situations, although the ice hardened in her friends' eyes is refusing to melt.

Hard, cold and distant, and expression stolen directly from the Kazama boy's face.

She reaches a delicate hand, wrapping polished fingers slowly around the glossy pages clenched tight within Xiao's vice grip, and from their resting place she tears them, flinging the magazine back to the disorganised mess beneath the shelves. As if the latest celebrity bible had placed these foreign feelings within Xiao's mind, as if Hollywood had already sown the seeds of doubt within the young girl's mind, red-carpet pages, glitz and glamour simply fueling her friends' paranoia.

And as she turns to leave, a confident skip to her step, overcompensating for the sudden uncharacteristic silence overwhelming the dark-haired girl, she misses the last words to slip from Xiao's mouth, dark words of doubt, the last evidence of mental anguish before her usual chirpy, quirky personality once more overwhelms her.

"Jin would tell me. About Christie. The Drugs. Jin would tell me".

Her latest mantra and she'll repeat her treasured words under her breath while she lies awake tonight, eyes searching the ceiling for a solution, cursing her undeniable need to constantly prove her worth, to comfort the struggling Mishima heir and to prove she's grown up, to offer her maturity on a silver platter. Their reunions are dotted throughout their lives, occasional and cold, but nonetheless significant.

She can't help but want to save him.

The kind of pet project you accept simply because it's fascinating, aware that progress is a farfetched result.

And while Xiao indulges in a darker side reserved for more personal moments, Miharu watches with as much concern for the girl, as Xiao herself harbours for Kazama. And while she watches her friends pink-painted lips moving in silent reassurance, well aware of what those soundless motions spell out, she'll tap her foot and smile, wait until her friend, Jin Kazama's messiah, leaves the room before muttering her complaints, her doubts, all the words that could break Ling Xiaoyu.

What damage a voice can do.

Proof that words are sharper than swords.

He won't tell her because he no longer has control over the devastating car crash he calls a life.

"He's got no control, Xiao, and he hates himself for it."


	4. Kiss Chasing

**Jakers. I don't own any of these dudes or dudettes. I'm hitting the hay now, It's 3 in the morning and this is getting de-riculous.**

_At the start it's a little haywire, but for the majority of this one, the 'he' is Hwoarang._

**

* * *

**

The clocks are aching, echoing early morning hours across blank faces. His world after sundown is the colour of old bruises, yellowed and brown, something most refuse to dwell upon. But he clings to his boyish traits, poking and pinching these soured skin stains until the pain becomes unbearable.

Tonight is no different, he stands silently among the dim street light, the pale yellow beams cutting through the thick black, searching out his features and highlighting the dark haze swallowing the light in his eyes. His shoulders hunched, something rabid and dangerous, to be avoided at all costs. The darkness obscuring the self-destructive streak painted angry red lines across his features. This boy is a beacon for disaster, should anyone care to acknowledge him. Bloodied bandages hang limp from his clenched fist, shiny-puddles of inky liquid gathering in his palm.

For these brief minutes of physical contact, of shattered fists and teeth strewn about the roads like crude confetti, pain is obsolete.

Knuckles shift and slide beneath the purpled skin, the words of his master ringing clear in his head, warnings and concerns, words of wisdom advising him to abandon this way of life, offering words like, 'unity' and 'conformity', words that push his insides, press against his skull, press white light behind his eyes. Ironically the words offered as distraction, inspire nothing but determination.

Across this alley stands a shadow, a silhouette with glistening eyes and murder spelled across his bitter grin. He's dignified, his motion fluid, graceful, like water, or blood. He moves, all airs and graces, the poster-boy for fine upstanding gentleman, his gloved hands shoved deep in his leather pants to hide the poisonous combination of blood and dirt layered cake-thick across his knuckles.

Hwoarang has built his reputation on sturdy supports, on deep frowns and dark eyes. His name the kind of scar people utter with a lingering wariness. An unstoppable force of teenage strength, and yet tonight, he parades with dirt smeared across his cheeks, sweat-streaked and salty. The bittersweet taste of skin. Eyes watch from the shadowed barricades, their lips moving soundlessly, light words fluttering away on the early morning breeze.

Their stories and statements of underdogs and fixed fights remaining secrets for now.

With the poppy-coloured fingerprints dusting his throat, veins pumping, roped thick around his neck, he spits his breaths through his teeth as though each was his last. And he'd smile had the simple tug of muscle not set electricity tingling along his skin. Late at night, he'd lay, pillow pressed tight over his face, knotted knuckles kneading the fabric past his lips. And he'd scream, the voice torn hysterically from his throat, the words losing their form, their function. And each night he'd drift into restless sleep, sheen of sweat above his brow. His cheeks moist, his eyes rubbed a vicious shade of red. Deep down he prays for those last breaths, pleads with every fibre of his self-harmed shell. And while the sickening crack of bone, the slippery copper sheen spread thick across his fingers brings this dangerous smile to his face, a distant spark to vacant eyes.

It is a relief he cannot sustain.

And while he revels in the desperate screams of others, many a night, his own tormented pleas fill his ears.

He's hunched, bent and snapped, cradling the concrete in his trembling hands, skin flaking, peeled back like foil candy wrappers. Trails of blood set about shapes, geometry and philosophy written around his ankles, and he'd laugh but it's still warm, still pooling in his palms, rising up his throat, suffocating him from within. The shadow man looms above him, his eyes the colour of silver dollars, glinting, glaring, throwing back reflections, not emotions, his skin pulled tight, baring teeth and bone. His breathing hard. Heavy and fast, the rise and fall of his chest racing a rainbow of sensations, the roaring of blood pumping through his head, the bittersweet pains tingling along his jaw, a kiss with teeth. No words spill from sealed lips, a sudden sinister smirk tugging the corner of his mouth.

The city seems to fall silent, this man's darkness swallowing, invading and infecting. He holds all the world's words in his hands, anything that has ever been said, anything that ever will be said, encased behind shattered knuckles, his personal hostages. And there they'll say until he can chase his breath, choose the words wisely.

There's a pulse, ticking rapid behind his cheek, a drumbeat of tendons and skin, his eye swollen shut, shades of maroon and fuchsia. And his lips part, purse, pout, move like he's tasting something disgusting, or maybe just mulling over the scene laid blunt before him. Another wasted teenager, arrogance and innocence spread across his face, a mild panic in his eyes. His kneecaps aren't shattered, but he'll fall to kiss the concrete. He knows when he's been bested. And despite his efforts, the prisoners of war clenched in his shadow fists, words fail him anyway.

He'll spit, pure blood exploding on the tarmac like fireworks, chew past the unidentifiable splinters spread across his tongue like needles and turn on his heel, leave this forgotten corner of hell, because he's already got what he came for.

He can consider himself a witness to the barest of human needs.

That teenager –_that child_- destruction flamboyant and obvious in his eyes, like paper chains, decorating the flaws of his character.

Red for passion and fury, red for fire.

The kind of kid who's constantly got something to prove, ready to run to the edges of the earth, touch the sky, save a life or take one. Life being something he intends to fuck with.

His admiration beaten only by his agitation.

The shadow man sighs a strangled breath, thick with blood and regret, his cartilage crushing his insides. In the cold cutting light, his face is the colour of royalty, his expression a study in despair. Only a few feet away, stepping outside their ring of golden light, the private world they've invented, the fingers of darkness warp and twist around him, swallowing him whole, the voices and the sounds of the city streets fading in like a soundtrack.

Hwoarang's ears adjusting slowly, like lifting his head from water, everything filtered through layers of cotton wool, fuzzy and soft, words without form, just sounds in different keys. He's left, limbs twisted and torn, crippled in the sunset glow of the streetlight, an offering, a human sacrifice.

A teenage waste of strength.

And maybe that's what he his, and he can't help the thoughts that crowd and circle, clawing at the insides of his eyes like a white light he can't ignore, reminding of who he is, of how little he is capable of. Just an example of what can happen.

He is a worst case scenario.

He runs fingers along his skin, fingertips burning patterns and promises into a pale canvas, the words of wisdom he never wants, carved crudely into hips, thighs, wrists and throats.

People gather in their curiosity, in their bravery, smug eyes sliding over him, salting his wounds. Cutting stares, his skin a stretch sheet of criss-crosses, of cross kisses. He cannot gather himself, his physical, and his mental, each in a steady state of decline. Focuses everything he is worth (_and everything he is not_) on pressing his lips together, the same grim line he's worn for years.

He's a man divided, expressions and emotions torn, spread, contrasting. Sadism running rampant in his blood, the hysterical laughter building low in his throat, his stomach clenched for the need of it. Part of him sees comical, sees amusement, and he's almost awed at how hilarious this scene suddenly seems. How he hides from war, favouring to fight for peace. It's all ironic, it's all the truth and it's all he is.

He wants to cry, to laugh, to scream, to show these people, an eager circus audience, that he can be what they are. They'll sneer, snort, spit words of advice to be categorized under '_information from a smarter generation_' and he'll nod, smile, clench his fists and thank them, each word a curse, each pause a prayer.

He attempts to stand. Joints snap, skin stretches and new wounds open, his skin splitting, wide red smiles littered across his pallor. His hands spread wide, fingers bent at awkward angles, any form of support, his knees knocking beneath him sending stabs of pain through his body, flaring white heat set behind bleary eyes. He'll wonder, once again, why he does this, as though the white bandage was not enough warning, blotches of red pressing through the fabric, like poppies blossoming along his arm, his hand. Back pressed firm against a shop front, cool glass now streaked with red.

If these windows had eyes, had lips, had words, the stories they could tell. Tales worth far more than those of the people who view the world through them.

He pats himself down, hands that say 'rehab' that boast clinics and recoveries, hands that tell stories they've never experienced.

The old hands of a young boy, overworked and underappreciated.

His mind screams reminders, alarm bells and mother's lectures, he already knows he has no cigarettes, but this move, this gesture, a familiar motion he views more as a coping mechanism for embarrassment, a defeat worthy of being filed beneath such a title. And suddenly he's back, standing squarely in the past tense, eye to eye, hand to hand with a shadow. Anonymous, skilled, authoritative. He replays the clash, the fight, over and over in his head, thousands of times -an old back and white on repeat- until he wins, and even then, he still seeks improvement. His darker side still howling laughter, coiled on itself with the effort, simultaneously wondering how the hustler got hustled.

The people thin out, the darkness seeping beneath their skin, alerting, discomforting, navigating through the cities mazes to find somewhere to hide tonight.

Because everyone is nyctophobic, the diagnosis is still on hold.

It's their secret, they just don't know yet.

He pushes from the window, fighting every urge to apologise, offer it a smile and a wave, paranoid that perhaps it can see him, knows what he does, smiles at the most intimate details of his character. And suddenly his feet can't carry him fast enough, the jagged pain shooting through his legs, like teeth on plastic, nails on a chalkboard, tights and chewing gum. He grinds his teeth against the irritation, his eyes not focused, drifting, the world fading in and out of view, sound still bleeding through in dull waves, incoherent and obsolete. Streets blend and dull lights blur, his heart racing his feet, his mind entirely focused on navigating, finding his way to his masters apartment before his legs collapse beneath him, like matches, brittle sticks.

He needs this, the achingly familiar, his hands clenched tight to the splintered door frame, fingernails dug hard, embedded in the soft wood. His lips will move of their own accord, the words and the whispers personal to them only, he will not hear, won't understand his own pleas, just imagine, absorb the low fog of sound. Fists will bang desperately on the paper thin door, knuckles looking every bit like a battle zone, a mine field, shredded, shrapnel. He'll smear his own dark insides across the panels, the vibrations of hurried footsteps within, and he'll squeeze his eyes shut tight to a rainbow of washed-out colour, a filthy sneer written across his lips. Despite the apathy and the urgency, his total lack of restraint, he'll know his master stands just beyond that door, his ear pressed close, listening, revelling in the sounds of recognition, of admittance, Hwoarang finally realising he's not fucking invincible, but playing along all the same.

Tonight, the scene plays differently, improvised, the lines altered, positions changed, genuine hysteria leaking into Hwoarang's muttered words of wisdom, of want. Emotion something he often tries to deny, to hide from his master. He'd never admit to being just normal, just average, still stuck in a childish frame of mind, clinging to the belief of mutations and superheroes.

He wants to save lives, but right now, he's not capable of saving himself.

The footsteps don't sound, no steady beat of salvation, of sympathy, a shred of compassion. It's all absent, and it's breaking his heart. Fists build a little more frustration, their steady rhythm gaining pace, a soft haze of red leaking into his vision. He won't call, won't bother verbalising his distress, not quite sure if his voice still works, a pressure on his lungs and throat, the skin still dotted with angry purple-yellow fingerprints, his medal for his efforts.

He'll stay, huddled in that doorway, some alternation of the foetal position, knees pressed hard into his eye sockets, sending a tingly pain across his skin. His master should be here, he understands the rules, too familiar with routine to break it now. He is the arms, the comfort zone Hwoarang frequently falls into, because everyone needs reassurance once in a while.

And suddenly he's on his feet again, his insides aching with long forgotten injuries, disregarded with time. His feet beating heaving pulses through the cement as his weary body carries a shattered mind and a darkened heart through the city streets, car headlights like streamers in the night, people posing as shadows, their voices the backdrop to daily life. He'll search the roads, the alleys, each building for his home for tonight, somewhere to rest his swimming head, to recollect, to once again familiarise, to reacquaint himself with colours, with words, with emotions.

Maybe he's taken one too many blows to the head, and he'll laugh at the possibility of his body dying from the inside out.

He'd never planned on living long anyway.

He was a firework, something momentary, something temporary, inspiring, distressing, screaming into the night, captivating, exploding in a hail of bright lights and strong colour. He won't last long, but the impact will be seen.

Soon he finds himself among the wooden shutters and crumbling brick, the more secluded areas of the city where he likes to recover, undisturbed and untouched.

This is what reality looks like; ruined buildings and cynicism, the bright city lights and the buzz of business are just facades, happy lies to convince the average that they'll be okay.

There's a hostel nearby, the light hum of insects buzzing about the porch lights. This is where he calls home, no reason to uproot himself from the forgotten corners of the city just yet. The military have yet to discover his whereabouts. His footprints boasting blood and ash obviously not enough of a subtle hint for them to follow.

He is their treasure hunt.

The lights of the lobby are dimmed to darkness, vague outlines of chairs and coffee tables, flowers and photo frames, a glimmer of light bleeding from the reception desk, pooling golden on the bare floorboards. He hears her before he sees her. The snapping of her gum, frustrated snorts and lazy sighs. She hates him for his lack of punctuality. The daughter of his landlord, a girl whose name he is yet to learn, a girl too irrelevant to know. There's still meat on her bones, her face still painted innocence, pinks and peaches, perfect and pure. Hair pulled back tight, emphasis on dark eyes rimmed in exhaustion he knows he is the cause of.

It almost makes him proud, this collateral damage.

She massages the heavy skin slowly, her fingertips pressed deep against her eyes, enough to cause her own bruises, to make her own damage. Her attention captivated by something she's reading, spread across the desk, ebony eyes eagerly chasing the words across the pages, a ring of keys spinning lazily on her finger.

"You're the last one in," she says simply, a bored drawl, eyes yet to abandon the alternate reality carved to her pages. She'll sit, by this peasant throne, her tattered stool behind the desk, each and every night, counting her customers as they wander bleary-eyed and lost to the world, through the front lobby, muttering their greetings, their well-wishings, retreating to their rooms to find something worth waking up to.

He doesn't respond, glances at her, seeks eye contact by way of apology, but she knows him too well, keeps her eyes rooted, her expression set, the kind of ice in her eyes capable of freezing blood. One frail, skin-painted hand gestures vaguely towards an alcove, the face of a clock sparkling in the faint flicks of light, the numbers illegible beyond that. She licks her index finger, the motion slow and sickening, pinching the corner of a page between the appendages, dark eyes adjusting slowly to the light as she searches out the shadow of her tenant.

Hwoarang is suddenly self-conscious, the violence in prints across his throat, his eye puffy, sagging slightly, the colour of raw meat. His fists like torn sheets of skin thrown across a rough skeletal shape. His face a picture worth painting, and while the injuries conceal themselves within shadow, hiding in the darkness, just a glimpse, a brief meeting of glances, a sudden and sharp connection, and she sees the hurt in his eyes, barely understands how his mind ticks over, and smiles sympathetically, hoping it's an offering he appreciates. His expression remains fixed, eyes flicking slightly in the shimmering haze. Ebony quickly settles once again to the pages of her book.

"Someone called looking for you," she announces, her voice sinking back to casual indifference, "A woman. She sounded surprised you weren't here".

The erratic beating pumping rave through his body, suddenly pauses, the breath hitching in his throat, faces flashing through his mind, voices ringing in his ears.

Family, ex-girlfriends, opponents.

Victims.

No-one who could hold any information to his whereabouts, people he's detached himself from, broken away, amputated. No-one who should care about his current state of disrepair. He'd ask for a name but he dreads a response, his voice still hoarse and choked, bundled deep in his throat. His mouth opens, lips part and pinch, the words lost behind his teeth. The receptionist keeps her head squarely down as he steps into her ring of light, revealing a body battered and broken, bent and bullied beyond its years.

She feels like she has known him, holds his stories close to her heart. Watches him leave while the dawn barely cracks the sky, recently, his arm ringed in bandages, his hand a patchwork of blood and cotton, torn skin and splinters of broken bones. She's cleaned his room, buried her hands in bundles of abandoned clothes, blood-soaked and ripped, forgotten and discarded like the stories that result in their sorry states.

His room a Picasso painting of dirt and whatever pumps through his veins.

From rusted knuckle dusters, heavy piping and metal chains, the links bent beyond repair -all stashed awkwardly in his wardrobe, a towel thrown over them, an afterthought- to the scissors pressed between his pillows, its metal blades still echoing his warmth, she's seen his inner workings, a brief peek into the mind of a chronically alert, constantly paranoid, insecure little boy with a penchant for violence and cold metals.

"She said she'd call back. Said it's important," calls the girl, her words falling on deaf ears, his back sinking into shadow as he heaves his body up the stairs, each step another gunshot, another painful surprise he wasn't aware he'd been nursing.

His own room is cold, strange, a setting he's quite comfortable with, dirty panes of glass rattling in battered wooden frames, bundles of clothes left heaped around the room, small attempts at kicking them from sight, serving as a constant reminder that this is not permanent, this can all change. And he intends to do just that.

He can almost smell her; an angel of innocence, her paper cut-out halo nestled comfortably above her head, the landlord's daughter. He knows her feet have led her here, her mind has wandered here, she's seen his secrets, she's seen his insides, spattered across rags and bandages still inked red, the familiar buzz of flies serving as a reality check.

She's stood among his battlefield, surveyed the damage and counted the dead. His cheap arsenal clattered in the cupboards, fingerprint weaponry and blood-stained evidence.

The skeletons in his closet.

He'll lie down, cheap sheets stained in rainbow shades of perfume, springs stabbing through his skin like hot needles. On the ceiling, above his pillow, spattered blue ink, harshly scratched words, reminders, encouragement, '_You are better than this_'. And he'll read it through like a mantra, the words still catching in his throat, like fingertips on sweat-stained skin, suffocating and hesitating. His lips peel into the beginnings of a grin, a smirk, several shades more sinister than a smile, and he'll bite back the vicious laughter bubbling in his chest. And so maybe he is jealous of the Mishima heir, and maybe their relations are personal before they've even encountered.

The voices inside him will argue, shout and scratch, convincing him that he is shaped, moulded, the combined efforts of everyone he has ever known, everything he has ever done.

Too world-weary to be false.

While Jin Mishima has struggled through what little years he has beneath his belt, a spoiled rich boy in a white padded-world, cotton wool and smiles, oblivious and relieved. Private clinics and back lanes, lines of his glitter cocaine, pretty girls with porcelain faces collapsing to their knees before him, each one having practiced the possibilities of a relationship over on loop in their minds.

And maybe the thought will race through his head, shattered fingers and nails chewed raw raking the rusty scissors beneath his pillow, that just maybe, his life is worth more.

He's not enthusiastic, but egotistical is far-reaching.

He is the grey between the black and white.

He'll drift to restless sleep, cold sweat and throbbing limbs, the salty-sweet taste of broken skin lining his mouth, the jagged edge of a shattered tooth, the tingling of exposed nerves. He won't complain, these injuries his badges of achievement. He sleeps through daybreak for the first time in years. He recovers from a defeat for the first time in years. His fists, his feet, trained weapons of war.

He wakes late in the afternoon, the stilled hands of the clock frozen on 2.40 AM, it's face wearing an expression of decided smugness as he hefts heavy limbs on to the creaking floorboards, each one squeaking it's protest as his fuzzy brain mulls over what woke him in the first place, each thought filtered through layers of cotton wool, through the voices of gathering crowds, each footstep sounding like the march of thousands. The gentle echo of a tiny fist on his door, sharp nails scraping by the lock, fumbling with a ring of keys, soft swears preaching choirs in his ears.

She calls his name, and he'll bury the palms of his hands into eye sockets, struggling to reach the world of the living, still fumbling in the spaces between. She's never seen him like this before, exposed and natural, too exhausted to set up his usual perimeter defences, too old for such childish arrogance, too young to care. The door shrieks loudly on it's hinges, a vision of 'pretty' framed by the splintered portal, the young girl, midnight's receptionist, a polished hand pressed to her chest, breathing exaggerated relief as she rests heavy eyes on him, drags them over his body and shakes her head.

"I thought you were dead, you bastard." And he doesn't skip over the words she fails to breath, '_A shame you're not_'.

She's quick to drink in his expression, discomfort, annoyance, vague curiosity; His eyes have lost their awe, their wonder, all instances of childhood wiped clean from his character.

A blank slate, chipped and shattered around the edges.

Her hands spin in motions she can't begin to understand, gesturing downstairs, speaking a sign language she has never learned, a different vocabulary to what he's hearing. Her dark eyes quick to take in his stance, she is beyond understanding his moods, his insane urge for privacy. He leans forward on the edge of a shabby mattress, eyes watching her motions slowly, absorbed by her hands more than anything she'd class as a stereotypical point of interest.

Bruises the colour of ocean floors and sunsets blaze across his chest, his ribs, someone spelling their name into his skin with rigid knuckles and razor nails.

His elbows rest on his knees, his hands falling limp between his legs. Dark eyes skim quickly to the pillow, the blue-dirt coloured handle of his weapon of choice peeking from beneath yellow-white sheets. He'd shrug and tell her it's just precautionary, but he doesn't want her to think he can't use it.

Nothing about him is for decorative purposes only.

Words fall quick from her glossy lips, disorganised. Jumbled and stuttered. A phone call in reception for him and he's quick to his feet, eager to discover who has tracked him down, someone with a fascination for chasing shadows and catching the wind in their hands.

His footsteps are slow and laboured, a cautious cocktail of curiosity and insecurity. The desk clerk chews back the urge to help him, to touch his skin and see his thoughts spelled out in words, eager in her own ways to discover why a simple phone call has him awkward and pale, the blood rushing from his face, pumping at 100 miles an hour through his heart. She can almost hear the beat, almost taps her feet to it as he staggers down the stairs, legs snapping and strengthening beneath him, bones like overcooked noodles, reaching blindly for the receiver.

"Hello?" and his voice sounds like it's been ripped from a raw and bloody throat, and maybe it has, the shadows lining the walls of his room the only ones to bare witness to his private downfalls. Has he been screaming in his sleep again? Fingertips subconsciously testing the bruise-burned skin, rubbing absent lines of anguish across his wounds.

"Darling, nice to put a voice to a face".

It's a woman, a strange woman, a new woman, voice slick, sly, shiny like oil, light and airy, each letter pronounced with particular effort, hard to place an age, his head still swimming from memories of paper chains and chips of bone and tooth spread like rice across tarmac. She pauses, waits for him to talk, like she's practised this arrangement for hours in her head. The kind of woman he pictures in sleek dresses, high fashion hairstyles and chic cigarettes, all coiling smoke and smooth skin.

He's immediately decided she'd look better in black and white.

There's the sounds of low male mumbling, frantic whispers along the line, words he can't distinguish, words she appears to ignore, her silence reigning strong and still.

Hwoarang says nothing, his teeth still chewing the soft flesh lining his cheeks, his suspicions flaring, his paranoia finally producing a result.

"I have a proposition for y-"

"I'm not interested," he growls, defensively, uncomfortable, his feet chilled, a cold sweat, his body aching, interrupting this slick woman before anymore champagne and chandelier tinted words can bleed from her mouth.

"Oh honey," she sighs, a tinkling laugh, like glasses and rain "You don't have a choice in the matter". And for all the familiarity she shows, her fuzzy words and the smile in her voice, she still manages to sound harsh, demanding, controlling, the other side to a less than polished penny.

He opens his mouth to complain, insult, argue, whatever instinct rises first, but she acknowledges his deep breath on the other end, hears him organise the words behind his clenched teeth, almost sees him spelling his argument out before his eyes.

"I have a friend of yours here, Hwoarang. I wouldn't advise the sharp tone."

And she revels in the sharp intake of breath, the light laugh of a born and bred lady once again ringing songs in his ears.

He wonders how his face would look, how his eyes look, what expressions bleed through the darkened colours. What can the sweet-faced receptionist read through his expressions?

_Is this a joke? _

She places a ginger hand to his, fingertips breezing over the pulsing veins beneath his skin, ribbons of purple and blue pumping fast, the black of his pupils swallowing the dying colours whole, absorbing.

The lady on the other end of the line, she waits, let's the impact of her pretty words sink in beneath broken skin. She knows him, knew his face, found his voice to be something new, and yet, he can't place her, can't recall ever encountering class like this woman exhibits.

"And how about now? Are you going to interrupt me again?"

He shakes his head, barely aware she can't see the gesture, grunting affirmation, his vocabulary something he no longer retains a healthy grasp of.

He thinks of door frames, of run-down apartments, and land-lady's shooing him from hallway alcoves and doorsteps.

He thinks of routines, of fighting and falling, of retreating.

He thinks of his master, his comfort zone, his safe haven, and then he thinks of why his master never answered the door to his frantic knocking the late last night.

He thinks of coincidences and unfortunate circumstances.

He thinks of people he loves, people he cares about, and draws a blank, the only exception being his master.

"I'm listening," he mumbles, the words coarse and blunt, a personification of the man who spits them down the line. And he's panicking, concern laced through his clenched fist. But he'll hold his breath and bite his tongue in the presence of the flush-faced young woman standing nearby.

This is another moment of weakness she needn't bare witness too.

"Excellent," purrs the lady, a hint of smugness to her tone, the sound of a male muttering once more sparking to life, echoing her words, a sniping tone aimed directly for her ego.

"Let's start from the start, little boy," a pause, a practised break, she tastes the words on her tongue, vaguely aware of their mind numbing impact.

"I can make you a god."

_Lets play a little game._


	5. All Those Words That Begin With 'L'

_More important than it looks. Lemme know whatcha think._

_

* * *

_

Emily Rochefort has long since forgotten the feel of cool copper coins along the lines of her palm. Wears a smile of pastels and pearls, practices the angles and curves of her lips in the mirror each night. She's trying to relearn her childhood, rose-coloured cheeks and sunburst smiles. Because these days, she is a businesswoman, cold and calculating.

She says, '_The world, it's gone green_', and her friends, polished hands and cheap gold jewelery wrapped tightly around polystyrene coffee cups, they talk about documentaries, greenhouse gases and animal extinction, their accents nasal and sharp, layer upon layer and they sound ridiculous, but friends are the only thing she cannot not afford on her budget of infinity. They talk through their hands, fluttering gestures, blood red nails and the rattle of beads on bracelets. She sighs a symphony and their voices dull to misled murmurs. _'Green, like money_,' trailing manicured hands along the cracked animal skin of her purse for emphasis.

They smile Botox grins, pink shimmering lips pulled tight like swollen infection, oozing nothing but pain and absolute agony.

Patience too steep a price for the company she keeps.

Emily does not believe money can buy everything. The pockets of an over-sized tuxedo jacket lined with paper bills, she maintains, _emphasizing_, money cannot buy anything.

Everything is a contract, spoken words and body language. Shaking hands, a stranger's smile. She says, '_Our bodies often betray us_', and they never credit her for her extensive knowledge of humanities self destructive tendencies. Sheepish greetings eagerly followed by disorderly language, '_How are you?_', '_Nice day we're having_', each uttered response is an agreement. '_I'm fine thanks_', '_Oh it's amazing, heard there's rain on the way, though_', it's all contract, signing your name between the lines in the air. Consent to indulge in a further waste of words and oxygen, unnecessary and irrelevant.

She says, '_In the long run, It's your subconscious that sells you up the river_'.

She often smiles that little girl grin, worthy of over-exposed photography on summer billboards, presses her opal tainted teeth in perfect tight rows, the tinge of pain involved with the curl of lips gradually fading to a faint reminder of the foreign expression on her face. Presses her knees together, a renaissance masterpiece of white cloth and angel wings, coloured like saints and secret sinners, red and back shimmering behind her eyes. Bright blue, framed in strawberry shades. Wide and wondering, shades of sea or sky, something deep and endless and empty.

But her words for the world are often overshadowed by how much more a picture can represent. Flashbulbs and reporters, questions loaded with barbs, she doesn't respond. Not a contract she deems beneficial, her dignity too steep a price. The words overtime gather, misused, abused, pushing against the soft pink ridges lining the roof of her mouth, dissolve and stick and choke her.

Throughout the follies of man, whispers of war, society's game of '_he said, she said_', she is still an heiress.

A princess.

A goddess.

The promise of battle looming on humanities horizon, she sees as polystyrene beads, holding her upright and steady throughout. Without the Mishima's sudden interest in her father's oil, she would continue to lead her life looking on from the wrong side of those velvet red ropes.

They pump money through her father's accounts like lifeblood. And while money cannot buy anything, it shows considerable skill in earning. And it's all ironic, copper coins and fresh pressed bills, a complicated game she's not so enthusiastic to play.

No winning unless she practises her poker-face.

Her ability to lie and cheat.

Such wealth in her possession has earned her front page status and gossip column stories, made public school seem like a far off nightmare, and yet she cannot spend it, offer it like rushed greetings to every unexpected smile offered on stranger's lips. Because without it, she'd be average again.

Tonight, her father requests her presence after dinner, and she smiles a sad smile as they once more immerse themselves in formalities and awkward small talk. They drift and drag, his body language screaming warnings of defence and withdraw, and her arms ache from her near constant state of reaching.

And she watches as his head fills with accountancy numbers and eyes fade a little more from her waking world.

"Yes, father," in the curt, clipped response of nobility, and maybe it's a reminder to him, a souvenir of his daughter's bright sunshine smile as it fades below the horizon of her grim indifference. Perhaps just a warning to herself, that this is no stranger wandering among the marble pillared corridors of their house that is no longer a 'home'.

In his office he builds dog-eared barricades of log book pages and chicken scratch notes, peers out from their ruffled edges, over their coffee-stained surfaces wearing that luring false sense of security she hates and admires all at once. That forced smile, an aching pull of muscle, reminds her of the authenticity seven-barreled figures can chase to the hills. His finger's tap impatient rhythms along the faded keys of a calculator, a pen perched behind his ear, the blotched black swirl of inky fingerprints along his jaw line, and she'd laugh her wind-chime laugh, catches herself just in time to issue explanations of how this relationship has dwindled to a 'strictly business' status.

His greeting comes in the form of prepositions wrapped in ribbons of promise, and the prospect of plastering that brilliant smile she thinks she remembers across her father's weathered face is enough to inspire her naivety.

"I see that Jin Mishima boy has been released," he says airily, eyes briefly skimming magazine headlines, fingertips brushing the edges of his proud paper city built high around him.

He prioritizes understanding the complicated history the Mishima family have woven themselves throughout the generations, over the growing insecurities his daughter frequently displays. He's well aware there's only so much gaudy gold and twinkling diamonds she can buy, nothing can hide the bare look on her face. Her entire expression nerve endings, obvious and exaggerated. And he promises, a mantra running over and over through his head, that after all of this, after both their private, their public wars, after their own weapons destroy them, they can be friends again.

Emily sees those eyes carefully disfigure her expression, cogs ticking like fine clockwork echoing through his office. He's planning, near sneering, his fingernail orchestra tapping away to his rapid heartbeat.

Once upon a time he loved her.

More recently, he forgets.

And she's willing to forgive him, encourage him. But he's so absorbed, so thoroughly wrapped in the lingering vines of the Mishima family tree, she's content to play his games. This contract, this price.

Her dignity is just barely enough to cover expenses.

"Heihachi Mishima seems to think you appearing with his grandson in public would do well for Jin's image, as well as further cement evidence of our agreement," he's musing out loud, and she's hearing the stakes raised, the price reaching ever higher, this time love on the line.

Her smile is neon, bright and painful and burning.

Snapshots flicker in her head, torn Polaroids posted along the crumbling walls of what she imagines her sanity should look like. She was a little girl, in pink frills and glittery headbands, odd socks and clip-on earrings. The image _then_, a vague mockery of her father _now_. Her fairytale stories stacked high around her, the spines of the books disfigured, mutilated from the constant stream of affections she showered upon them. A sugar-sweet smile, pink tinged cheeks, chubby fingers wrapped around the hardback cover of her picture books.

Cinderella and Snow White, riding into the sunset with their Princes.

Sleep-disturbed kisses and tales of sacrifice and bravery.

Her mother insisting in that smooth, silk tone that all these pages of pink chiffon and glass slippers were based on true stories.

Mothers could never lie, nor could they die.

But Lili has been proven wrong before.

Standing among the wreckage of her father's study, her heartbeat slows, and she squeezes kohl-lined eyes shut tight. This is her chance to be brave, Her prince is just taking his time, practising his heroic entrance, sweeping her off her feet. Away from wasted wealth, forgetful fathers and fake friends.

She's a teenage girl with an unshakable belief in love, and her father insists on tapping SOS beneath bold red print of Jin's name along the cover of some generic gossip magazine, a fuzzy image of his escort posted beneath.

"What is it you want me to do?" she ventures, her voice a near whisper lost among the mechanical clatter of his plotting.

While they maintain this faux familiarity, two stranger's coincidentally living within the same household, all the battles, the words they never spit at each other, all those thinly veiled insults and broken promises take place inside her ribcage, a battle barely contained, leaving her heart an echoing ruin.

Her father, refuses the eye contact, her sudden ragged, racing breathing escaping his notice, fingers dutifully shuffling through his paper balustrade, the sound of hardened fingertips scratching across soft paper surface grating her nerves, whittling her patience down to a fine point.

He's holding up a different magazine, the cover pinched between his index and thumb, sticky sweat fingerprints left along the glossy surface.

She recognizes the picture, recalls one of the girls discussing the image through coffee thick breath, enamel tinted yellow from the vogue cigarettes clenched between her teeth. 'Jin Mishima and Christie Monteiro' she read, exaggerating and enthusiastic, 'Look at this. Guess they _are_ kinda like a modern day Romeo and Juliet'.

Lili imagined Romeo and Juliet never looked so entirely dysfunctional.

Jin, darkness and death, always reminded her of stylised graffiti, his arm wrapped tight around Christie's hips. Soft silk and caramel personified.

Yin and yang, only they don't compliment each other the way opposites should.

Awkward and impossible, the angles between them are sharp edges, pointed corners.

It's all wrong geometrically, romantically.

And while her friends dote and fawn, cooing and pointing, garbling out their own Cosmo understanding of body language and lines of love and lust in eyes and skin, Lili battles the words bleeding forcefully up her throat like bile. She's barely managed to maintain her understanding, her belief in love. Refuses to expose such gullible minds to similar treatment. Refuses to mention the unnecessary, inappropriate.

Irrelevant.

Romeo and Juliet never got their happy ending.

"Heihachi does not approve of Mrs. Monteiro. It would be beneficial to both parties if you were to agree to be seen linked with Jin in public. Give the press an opportunity to write their own take and possibly divide this '_relationship_' between him and the model."

And her father, he's old, he's weathered and beaten, had his heartbroken several times, is unable to understand the weight of his demand, carefully overlooking the silent pleading in Lili's fading blue eyes.

She was - still is - determined her Prince will find her, but until then, she is too be seen publically hanging on this Jin Mishima's every word, smiling in response to his misery eyes.

A solemn nod marks her return to her own quarters, where she spends the night choking down feathers from her pillow, the fabric caught between her teeth, muffling the broken, miserable sobs her father hears like sirens through her bedroom door.

That night he places a call to Heihachi Mishima's private line, informing him of his daughter's agreement to act on their plans.

Two night's later, Lili receives a call from a woman with a voice like oil, chocolate.

"_Emily, honey. I was a teenage girl myself once. Falling in love is a foundation of that, is it not?_"

"_Don't worry, this arrangement your father has with the Mishima? It won't last long._"

" _… Attending the match …_"

" _… Find a boy with red hair in the crowd. He has his orders._"

"_Hwoarang._"


	6. The Pied Piper Of The Hollywood Hills

_Apologies to the three people who actually read this. I salute you._

_Short and shit. Gotta love it.  
_

* * *

Hwoarang's been haunting back-lanes and red-carpet gutter streets, his fingers lined with nicotine, eyes laced with the woes of the world, words and worries his war-torn mind can't possibly understand.

He's watched itching shadows climb from the concrete, eyes aglow, the colour of silver dollars, fingers twitching on shutter buttons, cameras the colour of gilded blades, twice as dangerous. Awkward shadows that congregate behind red velvet ropes, anxious eyes awaiting the next misled soul to wander along their red-carpet trap. The crimson-coloured road to personal disaster.

The sun is setting on their glitter tinted world, and these silhouettes have never looked so intimidating without flash lights gleaming off their platinum-plated fangs.

Tonight, Emily thinks, maybe the world looks scripted. A picture of poise and patience, swallowing the scenes of flickering flashbulbs and faceless reporters, choking them down like some bitter-pill cure for her fragile state of mind.

She's manufacturing wonderful failures of expression, half smiles, hesitancy and hatred. Fashions in leather and lace, heels like pin-points, and with every step she's carving the names of the people she's stepped on to get here. Gold-thread hair pulled and plaited with diamond-pearl pins, brilliant blue-grey eyes exposed, catching the spark of a paparazzi light. Pink-polish hands pinching at hips and ribs beneath layers of chiffon and silk, oozing confidence through a fatal wound, and she's bleeding out, her smile a fading star, realising she cannot outlast these starving artists of petty theft, sticky fingers snatching scraps of her soul through the viewfinders of the latest technology.

They watch her, only to see right through her, twitchy fingers and darting eyes, and she's looking for a boy, bruised and broken and brilliant.

In her head, beyond the sounds of shadow-shapes crooning her praise, she hears a familiar voice, a woman's sing-song charm, sounding like poured gold and crushed velvet, a lady of French manicures and catwalk fashion and in her polished hands, she offered a lifeline, a heart-shaped box and in it, all the childhood dreams of a faux fairytale princess, Emily in her mother's dresses, lipstick smeared across her cheeks. An escape route wrapped in a dignity-coloured bow.

Her silent search for a boy in the press pit, the only boy who doesn't belong there, red hair and red eyes.

Hwoarang's being lurking in the shadows of shadows for hours, and the sun's spread across the horizon, setting the streets aflame, a red-gold inferno tearing through his vision. Sleek cars and costly cameras, a whole world beyond his means. He's watching scenes from fairytales, girls wrapped in diamonds and pearls, smooth silk and blonde hair, men dressed sleek and sharp, black and white, and there's still dark rust-coloured patches dotting the knees of his jeans.

He still smells like cigarette smoke, like bad whiskey and bloodstains.

Dirty copper-tinged strands falling in his eyes, and he's squinting against hangovers and sunsets, the flashbulbs exploding like stars, spreading white sparks across his sight. Blind eyes struggling to focus on the faces of the broken shapes of people crawling along their red-road to self-destruction.

Girls with more money than sense, boys with more hate than heart, and no one wants to be here, but surely this happens for a reason ...

A ripple of sudden movement rips through the crowd, the voices of people sounding out urgency and emergency, and people are praising Jin Mishima like the second-coming. A commotion of shapeless words that maybe used to sound like the English language, blurring all his fine lines of concentration. A crowd composed entirely of elbows and activity, people breathlessly watching the descent of their messiah through viewfinders and digital screens.

Hwoarang's catching reviews and rumours through tight breaths and clenched teeth, whispers of drug-abuse and daddy issues and he's heard it all before. The uniform for the media icons of modern day society.

Jin, for all his stylists -health professionals demanding this and that, muscle and motion and diets that accentuate wrist bones and shoulder blades- looks like a caricature of himself, shadows creeping into the hollows of his cheeks, his eyes looking like fucking raw meat, blood-bruised and soft. Rubbing his temples with blackened fingertips, wine-stains and newspaper print. His name is some broken chant across the lips of hazy-eyed followers who see too far beyond the self-contained civil war he rages on his body.

Hwoarang's watching this woman weave and whisper her way along their velvet-rope divide. Looking like a forest fairy – silver, blonde and blush, smiling at all the right pauses, polished fingertips, and he thinks maybe he's seen her in a dream, the one where they tear through the church pews, charcoal feathers clutched in their fists, or maybe he just wants so much for her to be interesting, with that desperate look in her eyes, he just wants her to be something else, for her own sake.

Or maybe she's just as two-dimensional as the magazine covers she's gracing, with that citrus smile, all fresh and bright and stinging. And she's gaining ground, closing in, heart beat visible amid flickering lights and the pale dip of her temples, seeking out salvation among the sing-song scrutiny of a shadow army, she's got her eyes set on him, peeling back the layers of skin, searching for the single shred of decency laced throughout this entire collection of defunct characters and itchy trigger fingers.

Fingertips trailing along red velvet ropes, flash bulbs audibly hissing, her eyes flickering urgent, she's mouthing something that maybe sounds like his name in a vacuum, pink pearl fingernails tearing trails into the arm of her personal security, pointing back towards that boy in the press pit, '_the red hair and the red eyes_'.

Jin Kazama is pinching the bridge of his nose beneath glasses capable of camouflaging the brilliant shade of bruise lining his eyes; he's standing still, focusing on the ache crawling though his bones like a physical presence. The joints of his fingers ballooning beneath broken skin, and he's all so aware of the blood pumping through his veins, imagining maybe he can see through his skin, and suddenly he's not so still on his feet.

Across the red-rug valley lain between them, he watches the Rochefort girl looking like a page from a child's storybook, glitter-dust flickering from her eyelashes catching his attention, looking like the powder beneath his fingernails. Blonde and beautiful, his reluctant rumour for the night, and someone to his side queries the whereabouts of '_Mrs. Monteiro_' and he's seeing flashes of smooth skin and exhaustion, her name spelled entirely in numerical figures and dollar signs.

Waving his fingers and steadying his limbs, he's taking his giant leaps to the sound of camera shutters and people screaming his name, his bones melting and his vision slightly blurring, he thinks maybe he sees security offer a young man entrance into their diamond studded world. Blood stains and a tight jaw hardly 'in' for this season's catwalks, but what the fuck would he know, magic popping behind his eyes, just maybe this new kid is a threat.

'_You're Hwoarang, right?_' but she's not waiting for an answer, tiny hands barely capturing the shape of his fist, she's pulling him, saying, '_she said you'd help me. She said_,' and he thinks maybe he doesn't have the heart to tell her he doesn't understand. Maybe he doesn't have the heart at all. But he can't ask her over the desperation here, it's audible and buzzing in his ears, and suddenly strangers need his name, finally he's worth something, maybe a salary, a front page photo, people calling for his blood and his phone number, and he hears the melodramatic mind's ticking over their fantastical stories, bullshit theories for the boy with the bloody knees, who's eyes match the colour of the carpet he doesn't belong too.

'_She said you need to see Jin_.' And he doesn't know how much she knows, maybe only vaguely grasps the conversation, the seriousness of the entire situation. And this night is destined to end badly, broken bones and tarnished names their small badges of victory.

'_Check out the new guy_,' murmured demands for his personal bodyguard, the soft grind of bone on bone, she's flexing her knuckles and sneering, still speaking in the tongues of finishing school etiquette, muttering, '_as if it needs to be said_'. The prospect of a fight setting her face aglow, he's biting down on his comments, barely settling for '_I know, Nina. I got it._'


	7. The Bionic Beauty And The Technophobe

_I'm so sorry. I've been so busy being insane lately that i haven't done much. I hope this is okay._

* * *

Hidden away from a million flashing eyes - the polished silver claws of the paparazzi monster - in a lobby composed entirely of gold leaf and marble, there's this beautiful fairy girl with her fluttery paper hands and eyes the colour of melancholy blue. She's still clutching his war-torn knuckles in her grasp. Pink pearl lips praying her rapid poetry, diamond eyes fixed on floor tiles and footsteps. Her panic, her pressure and paranoia bleeding through her pores, a latent explosion pooling between their palms.

This girl is so many dimensions, and his mind is spinning attempting to fold her into the negative stereotype, the 2-dimsional typecast he has developed for Emilie De Rochefort.

She's smiling, this bare hint of muscular movement that holds no influence across the rest of her features. And she struggles for eye contact, peering out from behind her vacant porcelain mask, all pastels and purity; her eyes speak of mental battlefields and the emotional scars gained within. She says, 'You'll help me, right?' in her sugar-coated tones, her tiny, jewel-encrusted fingers pressing for new bruises along the line of his palm, the sharp silver, each tiny gem stone cutting delicate red curves into his skin, and this girl will leave her mark on him yet.

And she starts to speak again, eyes wandering across the faceless, the shameless, and they're already fabricating fantastical fairytales about the new boy with the broken knuckles and the broken heart, and he watches her speak, studies her mouth too closely, thinks maybe she looks better shaping broad vowel sounds, like his name was made for her lips. But her sinister whispering speaks of hate that shouldn't belong to her, she's saying, 'I _hate_', eyes raking across Mishima like her sharp glare could devastate the good-looks that keep those flickering bulbs trained on his face. But her breath hitches, lips seal to suffocate as punishment for her almost private admission of hate, the word alarming to her own ears more so than his.

He is a boy familiar with hate, feels it pulsing through his veins as his tunnel vision finally settles focus on the hunched, crumbling figure of the Mishima heir. And while his personal hostility wreaks havoc on his body, it is intense, and passionate, and this china doll girl deserves something just as powerful to shade over her love-starved eyes.

And Hwoarang with a brutal twinge to his riot child eyes, he thinks maybe he'd rather watch the Mishima empire crumble around the ankles of a boy designed to die, rather than meet the eyes of the fairytale princess hopelessly lost on her childish search for love.

But eye contact with Jin Kazama is black electricity shooting down his spine, addictive and despairing and he can't look away.

He's heard the theory, about how the stars die. How they leave these devastating black holes in their wake, empty black spaces that consume their surroundings. A stretch of cold tile between them, a lobby of beautiful strangers and artful liars, it's like a learning experience. Another star dying, collapsing in on itself.

Jin Mishima will not just vanish without tearing the world apart to leave his scars.

His own personal black hole, and eyes to match.

His gaze is fucking smothering, and Hwoarang's gripping Emilie's pretty little fingers like a lifeline, 'cause maybe he's drowning beneath eyes the colour of bad trips and those early hours of the morning where they all wear loneliness like a fucking second skin.

She feels him tense in her hand, the sudden lock of bone, the pull of tendons, counts the subtle ticks in his jaw, can't hear his breathing over the sound of grinding teeth. So she trails her eyes to the floor once more.

The lady on the phone had spoken of street-kids, spoken of an inferior breed of human being, their unshakable confidence, all attitudes and reputations and bones and bruises. But this boy beside her, warm and soft in her hand. He's too human and that realisation shakes her to her tiny hardening heart. He was to be her hero, strong-willed and dangerous, but tremors through his hands, the hitch of his breath, she prays they are his clever camouflage, an attempt to lure these cotton-wool wrapped child stars into some soothing sense of security. But she needs the vicious street fighter, the dangerous animal the lady with the liquid gold voice had warned her about. So she'll adjust, settle into her role of the wealthy daughter, looking like the seventh sin, hands of platinum and plastic subconsciously brushing across the devastated bone of his ring finger, inspiring these conspiring smiles across her pink frosted lips, and she'll just pray that he will too.

Emilie leads this boy through the glitter of flash photography, bloodstains on his knees, eyes like natural disaster, rings and rings of red and romantics, and he is the personification of every word she cannot say. This boy is her holy trinity with his wild fire eyes; her revolution, her rebellion, her redemption. She's sneaking glances through lashes heavy with glitter, gazing up at their downfall.

A boy with the promise of destruction carved into his skin, hands made to dismantle the world, a heart composed entirely of reasons to do so.

And she's recalling those stories her mother spun, fairytales of beautiful princesses, fair skin and pink chiffon, their rugged heroes, tearing worlds apart for love and life and their obstacles. Their villains of dark eyes and shady intentions. And she's following Hwoarang's gaze across the lobby. Jin Mishima is a masterpiece, a mockery of cubism, lines so severe, so sharp, discomforting to look at.

He is her villain.

But for tonight, forevermore, she'll fall in love with him.

On a strictly business level ofcourse.

'Jin,' she greets on an exhausted exhale, her voice laced with sugar and fucking arsenic, subconsciously refusing to release Hwoarang's shattered hand, because she may be a young girl, naïve and immature, or so her public prefers to portray her, but above all, true to herself, she is a cunning business woman and as such, she rarely finds herself without a plan.

Her fingers easily linking between those of the street urchin, whose own subconscious strides towards existentialism continue to leave him seeking acceptance enough to rub these tiny circles against the back of her hand, the callous fingerprint spirals turning her skin a dirty shade of pink. But the paparazzi monster with it's million blinking bulb eyes, its fangs of glitter and gold, it does not miss his ministrations, the comfort he seeks within her palms, an understandable solution for a boy pulled from his black alleys and graffitied bible verse street corners.

Just one picture, one blurred moment, their prolonged contact, their desperate hold on each other, the front page photograph she needs to free herself from Jin Mishima.

'Emilie,' comes the world weary response, his nicotine stained fingers tangled in the black strands sticking to his temples, sweat soaked skin glittering like sugar under the harsh surgery lighting of the lobby. His pupil's blown out like supernovas, red thread capillaries shattered in the whites of his eyes. Biting down on the urge to lick his teeth, the effort visible in the strain of the chords in his throat. Strung out as fuck, even the roll of his eyes relayed to them in slow-motion, a lazy smile twisting his lips, eyes magnetised towards their clasped hands. But he's too far gone for logical thought, for trailing sentences and the formalities beat into him in finishing school.

He's taking in the poster-child for a wasted generation, trailing his eyes across bandaged knuckles and broken ribs, barely holding eye contact with the dangerous street-boy, all shades of red and purple.

He does not belong in their perfect little world.

He cannot stay here

'Nina' his tone a little sharper, angled to match harsh features, his prickly attitude. A voice box filled with gravel and broken glass, the audible struggle to articulate beneath an obvious drug-fuelled haze. His mouth is sluggish and awkward around the syllables, some vague gesture, lethargic and loose, his hand moving by his side.

There's a woman, lingering by the darker corners, arms folded across her chest, her security earpiece glinting in the light, her brow climbing at the mention of her name, a smirk curving tight lips, vague interest on her features. The blonde slinks her way through suits and silk, pours herself through pockets of people, curves and curls, sleek and sexy and almost disguising the animalistic tint to hard features.

Hwoarang recognises her posture, her movements, from a past life. He's seeing black and white re-runs, flashbacks of his sixteen year old self, wasted on a mouthful of vodka stolen from some pretty girl's mouth and a fistful of painkillers, attempting to sneak into the seedier nightclubs of the downtown back alleys. The neon street signs singing their siren calls into the night, embracing him in arms riddled with rope burns and track marks. He's recalling the whiplash of being dragged out back by men with fists like slabs of meat, dark shades despite the late hours, cuff links and pressed suits.

He is familiar with the look of a bodyguard.

'A woman?' he questions under his breath, and yet despite the noise, the repetitive click of cameras, the whisper of words is enough to capture Emilie's attentions once again.

'A _warrior_,' she clarifies, eyes retreating to the safety of artificial cracks in floor tiles, because she's heard the myths and legends of Medusa's fatal gaze, and while Nina Williams' professional reputation is one built entirely on the foundation of sinister industry rumours, she has no doubt in the woman's ability to reduce her foes to rubble with her suffocating stare.

'Nina, it's seems security out front is a little slack,' he's growling in a voice choked by cigarette smoke and late night powder parties, a slight nod in Hwoarang's direction. She's leveling her dirty, industrial coloured stare on the subject of her bosses' apprehension.

Emilie De Rochefort, a sacrifice to the starlight, a fading moon, an empty threat regardless of the hopeful flickers in her eyes. But this new boy, she had seen him through the crowd, his hair inked violent with blood, eyes like open wounds. The pink-pulp mess of his knuckles, the distortion of his fingers, the unnatural angles between each. She easily identifies them as the hands of a fighter, a boy familiar with reckless offense/defense, pristine bandages hinting at fresh injuries.

'A bodyguard, perhaps?' she's purring, eyes fixated and cataloguing, estimating weight and height and the precision she'd require to fell some unstoppable, frustrated, 'wronged' teenager seeking his revenge on the world.

But she is slick, confident in herself and competent in her line of work, her tone of voice being enough to placate the Mishima prince, she's exercising an almost maternal control she holds over the heir, that boy's head too caught up in the clouds to register the defiance in her words.

She figures maybe she should be more concerned, a little more wary of the graceless little wretch, awkward arrogance in leather and jeans, tight jawed, grime-lined fingernails.

Street chic.

This is her career, Jin Mishima placed specifically under her protection, and yet, she compulsively flirts with disaster, with their ruin, threats to her profession, threats to his life, and that knowledge in itself keeps that mute smirk tugging at her lips.

This boy is anonymous, no background as far as she's concerned. No reason for infiltrating their gold-plated little bubble of money and misery. And yet, here he stands, staring her down with tired eyes and attitude issues. He's endangering the likelihood of a union between Rochefort's father and the Mishima Empire by simply holding her hand, effectively smothering any potential rumours of a budding relationship between her and Jin. She knows how this will look to the public's enquiring eye, spread out like a death sentence across their glossy gossip magazines. Mishima too will be featured in these no doubt front-page photos, engaged in conversation with Emilie De Rochefort, despite the gloss of his latest chemical cocktail dulling the typically vicious shades from his eyes. People will count the feet between them, conscious of the determination with which Emilie links her fingers through those of the poverty stricken street boy. Christie Monteiro's reputation will survive unharmed, her relationship with the Mishima heir untouchable to even the polished platinum fingers of a girl like Emilie. But perhaps the critics and investigators will overlook Jin's latest failed stint in rehab, his apparent inability to communicate with the girl intended to parade as a replacement for Monteiro, in favour of identifying the striking red-head with the carved features and shattered knuckles.

But men with low voices and dark suits move throughout the crowd disrupting her wandering trail of thought as they struggle for some semblance of order among the throng, ushering the masses along in their sceptical tones, agitated hand motions gesturing towards the towering doors entering the arena. And Jin is already turning away, once again folding back in on himself, a star collapsing, eager to move along, having been reluctant to make an appearance earlier in the evening and showing no qualms with regards to voicing his opinions on the matter, although Nina held her suspicions that the promise of a particular heavy encounter with a new batch of blow was intended to keep her subject sprawled on his bathroom tiles for the night.

However, Heihachi had summoned his grandson in his thunderous tones, expecting Jin's appearance at the event, despite the whelp's rapidly deflating protests. And already there was glitter on his face, dried blood crusting beneath his nose. A cry for help? Or a promise of worse to come. Heihachi had made no comment, overlooking the display of cowardice unfamiliar to their strong bloodline, Jin's obsession with chemical escapism, the secret that maybe he doesn't want to keep.

'You've got your father's strong features,' he'd said, shuffling papers, avoiding eye contact, consciously eluding the evident comparisons between Jin and his mother.

'Why don't you put yourself to some use, boy.'

Heihachi Mishima had developed quite a name for himself as a man passionate about gambling, 'Passionate about _winning_,' he would often correct, smiling his way through interviews, cleverly avoiding the topic of broken kneecaps and fixed fights, precautionary measures to ensure Heihachi Mishima getting his way in the long run. Be it wagers on prize fighters, or shady business contracts, leaving life and limb vulnerable at the risk of failure. Tonight, as the paparazzi prophecy tells it, Heihachi himself has a small fortune, no doubt a majority percentage of Jin's inheritance, placed on the head of one Steve Fox, a young man proving himself a juggernaut among the ranks of the boxing elite, and Jin's providing his disinclined company, at the order of his grandfather, to collect the winnings.

Emilie gradually disentangles her fingers from between Hwoarang's bandaged hands, reluctant to remain exposed to the heated tension flaring between her ally, and the assassin. She's slipping away in a flash storm of silk folds and pink pearls. And he thinks maybe his eyes should follow her, all blonde and blue, that wholesome beauty boys like him should follow, but this woman, wrapped up in layers of leather and loathing, she's lingering a little too close, leaning, and her lips are moving, sinister words that hardly belong to her pretty face bleeding out across their red carpet.

She says, 'Boy, you're no bodyguard,' her tone light and casual, eyes carving trails in to the marble, mimicking the movement of Jin's awkward drag across the lobby, stumbling along like a scene from a horror movie, red-rimmed eyes and Armani suits.

A contradiction in himself.

She flicks the bandage of a mangled fist, some silent, underhanded comment to the sloppiness of his technique, but he can't hear her over the electric blue that rushes through his nerves with the contact, the roar of white noise in his ears, his skin still a raw, sensitive mess, a torn canvas of skin inspiring nurses to shake their heads and whisper words of reconstructive surgery and permanent deformities. And it's a knee-jerk reaction, some animalistic automatic response that has the blonde pinned to the wall, a small smile secured across her lips despite the sudden aggression, an expression he ignores in favour of maintaining his ignorance to the secrets she's hiding.

And to her credit, she barely flinches to the sounds of her wrist shattering beneath his iron grasp.

Blood and bone and the pulp of skin between his fingers, and she sighs like these minor inconveniences occur too frequently for her liking.

'You should step back,' she's suggesting in deceptively sweet tones, her gaze wandering over his shoulder, scanning the lobby for potential interference.

Potential witnesses.

There's a reason she was assigned the role of bodyguard to Jin Mishima.

Boys like Jin seek out disaster and she cannot afford to be anything short of bulletproof if she is to collect the next week's pay cheque.

Cradling her ruined wrist in her good hand, he watches her massage the bone, the tiny fragments grinding beneath her skin, and with a look of vague disinterest, testing him with her 'I_s that all you've got?_' expression, a raised eyebrow, the quirk of her lips. And this woman is science fiction, robotic, some modern day immortal, and he's watching with his breath caught in his throat as her shredded skin seems to knit itself back together. Bones rebuilding their faithful structure beneath the surface of her skin. And she is untouched as she wipes away the smudges of blood dotted in fingerprint shaped blotches along her arm. She's saying, 'Do you believe in magic, little boy?'

Making that devastating eye contact, a curious smile on her lips saying, 'I know why you're here.'


End file.
